A Matter of Life and Death
by Minutia R
Summary: The summer following The Lives of Christopher Chant, Christopher meets an old friend while investigating a mysterious death.    It's been brought to my attention that Christopher returned to school for a few days after dying. I guess this is an AU now?
1. Chapter 1

It was a dreary time at the castle. Jason had gone home for the holidays, and the Goddess wasn't back yet for hers. No one thought of giving Christopher holidays. Flavian had decided that this was his chance to teach Christopher necromancy. "Jason's got no reason to learn it," said Flavian, "but you'll need a thorough grounding in every type of magic when you're the next Chrestomanci."

Necromancy made Christopher sick. But Flavian was _not_ going to know that the next Chrestomanci ran to his washroom to vomit every afternoon after lessons, so Christopher had been practicing his bored and stupid look as hard as he could. Nothing annoyed Flavian more than Christopher's bored and stupid look. The result was that Christopher and Flavian were getting on worse than they had any time since Christopher came to the castle.

One morning after about a week of this, Miss Rosalie poked her head into the schoolroom and said, "Gabriel's sent me to borrow your pupil, Flavian."

Flavian made an effort to conceal his relief. It made him look stuffed, instead. Christopher was less tactful. "You're taking me out of lessons?" he said. "But we had so much fun planned! Flavian was going to fetch mice out of all the traps and make them dance!"

Flavian looked a little green himself at this. Rosalie frowned. "Gabriel's got the idea that you're ready for some practical experience," she said, "so you're going to accompany me and Mordecai on an inquiry in London."

Christopher followed Rosalie out, grinning and unrepentant. Rosalie forgot to look disapproving as soon as they left the schoolroom. She had her own reasons for wanting to be out of the castle lately. She and Tacroy were going to be married in a month, and she had made it clear to her family that all she wanted from them was to come to the church on time the day of the wedding. Nevertheless, she was constantly having to deal with aunts and cousins and brothers showing up at the castle with advice, offers of help, and, in extreme cases, valises. She looked as though she would have liked to deal with them the way she dealt with Christopher's cat Throgmorten, with leather gloves and a broom.

Tacroy was waiting at the pentagram, and Christopher barely stopped himself from saying, "Where are we going today, Tacroy?" Tacroy was sensitive enough about his position in Gabriel's department as it was. After the affair with the Wraith and the Dright, he had been at the point of offering his official resignation. But Rosalie had said, "You really do owe it to Gabriel to stay, Mordecai," and Christopher had said, "Don't leave me alone with all these horrible stuffy people again, Tacroy!" Tacroy _might_ have said no to either Rosalie or Christopher, but he was entirely incapable of refusing both of them, so he had stayed.

Christopher and Rosalie stepped into the pentagram, and the three of them found themselves in a small office. "What's the mission, Rosalie?" said Tacroy, as they walked through a narrow corridor towards an even narrower flight of stairs.

"About a year ago," said Rosalie, "a bank clerk named Richard Bede took out a thousand-pound life insurance policy from Pugh's. He died two weeks ago, the coroner said, of a heart attack. But there's a temporary office clerk at Pugh's who strongly suspects some sort of magical wrongdoing."

Tacroy's eyes crinkled in confusion. "Doesn't Pugh's have its own investigators?" he said. "Not to mention the regular police."

"Indeed," said Rosalie. "_They_ found no evidence of anything wrong. But our temporary office clerk is the son of the Director of Pugh's, learning the business on his school holidays. He spoke to his father, and his father spoke to the Minister, and the Minister spoke to Gabriel, and here we are."

"Aha," said Tacroy.

Aha was right. This wasn't an investigation, it was an exercise in unruffling the feathers of some schoolboy who thought he knew better than anyone else. No wonder Gabriel had been willing to send Christopher along.

_I saved the man's lives—seven of them!_ Christopher thought. _And he still won't trust me with anything important!_ But he was too glad to be out of the castle, and avoiding necromancy, and on a mission with Tacroy again to feel really resentful.

They walked two blocks, heads down against the drizzle, until they got to the Pugh's building. It took up an entire block, had the name PUGH'S over the doors in letters taller than Christopher, and looked like a palace. A doorman in a long coat opened a door for them and they came into a lobby as big and grand as the dining hall at the castle. Rosalie exchanged a few words with a tall lady in a neat black dress, and the lady said, "This way, sirs and madam," and they followed her through an ornate wooden door.

The other side of the door was much plainer, and the corridor it led into was equally plain, with a frayed yellow carpet and a series of identical plain doors on either side. It was warm, and airless, and stank of people. Christopher sneezed. The lady opened one of the doors onto a large windowless room with files along all the walls, where a dozen men and boys bent over stacks of paper on a long table. "Oneir," she said, "the people from Chrestomanci's department are here to see you."

One of the boys along the table lifted his medium-brown head, revealing an utterly familiar face. "Oneir!" said Christopher, delighted. "Stuck in your father's office after all, are you? You can't imagine how I've missed you."

Oneir had gone so pale that for a moment Christopher thought he was spirit-traveling, and his real body was somewhere else. "How do you do, Chant," he said at last, barely above a whisper. "Thank you for coming, Mr. . ."

"Roberts," said Tacroy. "And this is Miss Lovelace."

"I'm sorry for wasting your time," Oneir finished, looking back down at his stacks of paper.

"Oneir, what's _wrong_?" said Christopher.

"Nothing's wrong, Chant," said Oneir, in the same low monotone, eyes firmly on his papers. "It's just I made a stupid mistake. As usual."

Rosalie narrowed her eyes and looked from Christopher to Oneir. "Mordecai, why don't you and Christopher go and have a look around the office while I talk to Mr. Oneir," she said.

Tacroy did not lead Christopher further into the offices, but Christopher didn't notice until he felt rain on his face again. "Oneir was my best friend in school," he said. "I used to tell you about him, remember, the one with the cricket book? Why wouldn't he talk to me, Tacroy? Why wouldn't he look at me?"

"I don't know," said Tacroy. "It might be the way things are at the office, or between him and his father, or any one of a hundred things that are nothing to do with you. But . . . how did you treat him, at school? I know you'd never do anything deliberately cruel, but sometimes you don't think."

Even Tacroy thought it was his fault. "I never did _anything_ to him," said Christopher. "Unless you count not dying when he hit me with a cricket bat."

"Wait, you what?" said Tacroy.

"That time we got caught by the trap in Series Ten, remember?" said Christopher. "I woke up in the morgue. My father took me out of school after that."

Tacroy stopped still on the pavement, and Christopher had to stop with him. They were jostled by hurrying men in dark suits. It was a good five seconds before Tacroy said anything, and then it was just, "Christopher," soft and sad and shocked. It made Christopher feel like he'd been eating mermaid sandwiches, when he hadn't done _anything_.

"What?" said Christopher irritably.

Tacroy sighed, and started walking again. "You're telling me that the last time this Oneir saw you, he'd just killed you."

"Well, not _really_," said Christopher. "It's not as though it was my only life, and anyway, it was just the death I'd already had in Series Ten catching up with me."

"But _he_ didn't know that," said Tacroy. "God, I remember what you looked like that time, the inside of your head sprayed across the carriage like a bloody rainbow. And unlike him, I really _was_ responsible."

"Stow it-" Christopher started, but Tacroy kept talking over him.

"No, you listen for once, Christopher," said Tacroy. "Your friend, Oneir, kills you, and then what? They must have told him you'd survived after all, but he's seen you with your brains all over the field. And he knows that you don't come back to school. He must imagine you, best case, lying in a hospital bed with half your head gone, drooling and being fed with a spoon. For the rest of your life. Maybe his father transfers him to a different school where no one knows what he's done, but wherever he goes, _he_ knows he's the boy who smashed his best friend's head in with a cricket bat. And then you show up at his office and act like nothing's happened. How do you _expect_ him to feel?"

"Oh," said Christopher. He _had_ been eating mermaid sandwiches. All that useless time he'd spent missing Oneir when he first came to the castle—why hadn't he ever thought of writing to him?

"It's not your fault, Christopher," said Tacroy gently. "But you've got to learn to see things from the other person's point of view. Consider it part of your training in investigations."

"Isn't education wonderful?" said Christopher.

They passed a man with a pushcart selling ices, and Christopher got a strawberry one, and Tacroy got a blackcurrant one, in spite of the rain. By the time they were back in the small office they'd set out from—which turned out to be the London office of Gabriel's department—Christopher was feeling a bit more human. Rosalie arrived shortly afterwards, and swiped Tacroy's ice.

"Were you able to persuade young Mr. Oneir to come out with his suspicions?" Tacroy asked her.

"Not exactly," said Rosalie. "But I was able to persuade him to come here on his break and talk to us then. I gather that whatever roused his suspicions is something he doesn't want to become office gossip."

Tacroy screwed up his eyes at her. "You're laughing at something," he said. "Is it funny office gossip?"

"I'm not laughing," said Rosalie, sucking on her ice.

"You are," said Tacroy. "I can tell."

And the oddest thing was, she was. Her mouth wasn't smiling, but her cheeks dimpled. Christopher had never suspected Miss Rosalie of having a sense of humor before.

"Mr. Oneir wouldn't say a word about his suspicions," Rosalie said. "But he did finally tell me how he knew Christopher."

Christopher and Tacroy frowned at each other. _That_ was not funny. But Rosalie didn't catch it, and kept talking. "They were at school together," said Rosalie, with an unladylike snort. "Oneir used to do Christopher's magic for him."

"That was before Dr. Pawson figured out about the silver," Christopher said, annoyed.

"And in exchange—" gasped Rosalie, passing the ice back to Tacroy before collapsing in a chair in a fit of giggles, "in exchange—oh, dear, Christopher, I'm sorry—Christopher used to do Oneir's maths for him."

And that was all, aside from helpless laughter, that could be got out of Rosalie for more than a minute. Eventually she sat up and wiped at her eyes with her handkerchief. "It's funny, you see," she explained, "because you're going to be the next Chrestomanci, whereas Oneir is going to be the next Director of Pugh's."

"Is it?" said Christopher.

Rosalie and Tacroy looked at each other over Christopher's head. Rosalie snorted again. Tacroy didn't make a sound, but his eyes screwed up so tightly they nearly disappeared. On the whole, Christopher decided he had preferred it back when Tacroy was unlucky in love.


	2. Chapter 2

For the next hour, Christopher, Tacroy and Rosalie read police reports, coroner's reports, and sworn statements signed by Richard Bede's widow and several people who worked at Pugh's. At least, Tacroy and Rosalie read them, and Christopher stared at them until his eyes swam and he realized that he had been seeing cricket matches for the last ten minutes instead of the words on the page.

At noon, a footman arrived from the castle by way of the pentagram, with lunch. Rosalie helped unload it and arrange it on the desks, while Tacroy cleared away papers. "Christopher," said Tacroy, "will you go down and make sure Oneir finds his way here all right?"

Christopher would rather not have. But he knew that Tacroy was giving him a chance to talk to Oneir in private, so he went.

Oneir had a different way of walking than he used to, head down and shoulders hunched forward. Between that and his dark raincoat and cap, Christopher nearly let him walk right past before he recognized him. "Oneir," he said.

"Hello, Chant," said Oneir. He looked Christopher in the face this time, but his expression was still spooked.

"I'm not a ghost, you know," said Christopher. "I've got nine lives."

"Yes, Miss Lovelace explained that part to me," said Oneir. "Still, you've got eight now, haven't you?"

"Well, no," Christopher said. "I've been rather careless with them."

"Careless," said Oneir. "Like standing next to a maniac with a cricket bat."

"Look, Oneir, that wasn't your fault," said Christopher. But he didn't know how to explain about the Anywheres, and the Wraith, and everything. "It was bound to happen."

Oneir laughed shortly. "Do you know what the odds against that sort of thing are?" he said. "_I_ do. Two and a half million to one, roughly."

They walked into the building where Gabriel's office was. Christopher was thoroughly exasperated. He was _trying_ to explain, and Oneir wasn't _listening_. "Are you angry with me for not being dead or crippled?" Christopher demanded.

Oneir's eyes went very round. "No!" he said. "God! I'm glad you're all right, Chant, really."

And Christopher had to be satisfied with that, because they had reached the office. Tacroy and Rosalie were waiting, and so was lunch. Christopher could smell it all the way down the corridor. It seemed like it had been years, rather than a week, since lunch had smelled good to Christopher. For a while, everyone ate, and no one talked.

"Well, Mr. Oneir," said Rosalie, when they were down to cake crumbs. "What makes you think that Richard Bede was killed by magic?"

Oneir shook his head. "I don't know anything about how Mr. Bede died," he said. "But I know—Last Tuesday, Mrs. Bede, the widow, came to the office to claim her husband's insurance. She talked to Mr. Godwin, and Mr. Hartwell, and Miss Larch. It was just the regular routine; signing papers, swearing that she knew of no reason the policy shouldn't be honored, and so on. And there was a clerk there, a fellow I work with named Sachs, running back and forth and fetching the relevant files and forms."

Oneir looked down at his hands for a moment, and Rosalie nodded encouragingly. "Here's the thing," said Oneir. "Sachs drinks. He comes in in the morning with a flask full of whiskey, and by teatime he's got a flask empty of whiskey. Then he goes down to the pub and drinks some more. The fellows all know it, but he's a good clerk, so nobody says anything."

Oneir took a swallow of his tea. "And here's the other thing," he said. "Mr. Godwin and Mr. Hartwell wouldn't have signed those forms if things hadn't been in order. But Sachs told me that Vesta Bede never took her oaths. So who would _you_ believe? Two sober gentleman and a lady? Or one drunk clerk?"

"I have to say," said Tacroy apologetically, "that all else being equal I'd be inclined to believe the ones who hadn't been drinking."

"Exactly," said Oneir. "But I believe Sachs."

"Why?" said Tacroy.

"You know how you can test whether someone's drunk by making him say the alphabet backwards?" said Oneir.

Tacroy nodded.

"Not Sachs you can't," said Oneir. "He may be seeing pink elephants, but he does his job."

Rosalie, who had been leafing through the papers, frowned. "I think I believe your Sachs, too," she said. "The statements that Mr. Godwin and Mr. Hartwell and Miss Larch gave the police match rather closely."

"That's the trouble," said Oneir.

"But people who witness the same event will usually contradict each other when describing it," said Rosalie. "People who have been bewitched by the same sorceress, on the other hand—I think we should have a word with Vesta Bede." The dimples flashed in her cheeks for a moment. "It's too bad you didn't bring your Sachs along. We could have done his soul a good turn and pursued our investigation at the same time."

"How?" said Oneir warily.

"The Temperance Society is having a meeting outside a public house a few blocks from here," said Rosalie. "If she runs true to form, we'll find Vesta Bede there. Would you like to come along? We're here at your instigation, after all. And there may be hymns."

"No, thanks," said Oneir. "I'd better be getting back. But thank you for listening to me. And . . . take care of yourself, Chant, eh?"

"You, too," said Christopher. Oneir turned left when they left the building, and Tacroy, Rosalie, and Christopher turned right. After a block, it became clear that there was a disturbance up ahead; the pavements were crowded and the carters and cab drivers on the street jostled and shouted, but didn't actually move. Another half-a-block, and Christopher could hear singing, ragged and not quite on-key.

He recognized the song from music at school, all about the walls of Jericho and waging war against the mighty hosts of sin. Fenning used to replace the line "for He could burst the gates of brass" with words that Christopher had to have explained to him, and then explained to him again, in smaller words, whereupon he had humiliated himself by turning scarlet.

The crowd of women blocking the pavement and spilling out into the street were, if possible, worse at singing than Christopher's schoolmates had been. But what they lacked in skill they made up for in appalling enthusiasm. There was one stout, lion-voiced lady in a prim bonnet and shawl who looked like she was ready to dismantle Jericho with her bare hands.

On the fringes of the crowd stood two small, skinny girls and an enormous black pram. The girls were also dressed in black, stiff and shiny dresses with lots of flounces and puffs that still managed to seem somehow shabby. The smaller of the two girls was practicing a bored look nearly as good as Christopher's own, but the bigger one was singing. Her voice was clear and high, and, Christopher was shocked and enchanted to discover, she knew Fenning's words.

The ladies concluded the hymn, two or three at a time, and started another. "We always used to sing this one, 'I will make you vicious old men,'" Christopher supplied helpfully, under his breath.

The girl startled, and looked over her shoulder. Her teeth flashed and her face lit up for a moment, and then she was earnest and wide-eyed once more. "I've never seen you at a meeting before," she said. "What's your name?"

"Christopher," said Christopher.

"I'm Temperance," said the girl. "My sister's Patience, and the baby's forty."

Christopher looked into the pram, alarmed. There was a perfectly ordinary baby lying in it, bald and sucking on its fist and sleeping in spite of the drizzle and the hymns. "It can't be more than three," Christopher said.

"Stupid," Temperance said. "Forty-one."

Christopher fell back on silence and a baffled expression. The smaller girl, Patience, giggled. "It's the baby's name," she said. "Forty."

"Ah," said Christopher.

"It's short for Fortitude," said Patience. "She's one."

"You have to _explain_ everything, don't you?" said Temperance, sourly.

The rain picked up. Christopher conjured an umbrella from the castle, and the girls edged closer to him. The baby stirred in the pram. The lion-voiced lady at the front of the crowd, who was saying a prayer, rushed through to her Amen in record time, and the women began to disperse. Christopher spotted Tacroy and Rosalie, accompanied by a small, thin, and severe-looking woman, making their way towards him.

"I never sign anything unless I'm forced to," Tacroy was saying cheerfully. "Professional habit."

"But surely, the temperance pledge—" said the woman.

"I imagine you've had quite a bit of success bringing poor sinners to the light," said Rosalie.

Christopher, catching her emphasis, looked at the woman again with his witch sight. Persuasive magic eddied in the air all around her, slewing around Tacroy and Rosalie, but catching the interested glances of people as they passed. This must be Vesta Bede.

"Temperance, dear," said Mrs. Bede sorrowfully. "It isn't _nice_ to talk to strange boys, is it?"

"No, Mum," said Temperance.

Stiff new black dresses, right. And one of the reports had said something about Richard Bede leaving behind three daughters, hadn't it?

"It's just Christopher," said Tacroy. "There's no harm in him." Christopher did his best to look harmless.

"That's as may be," said Mrs. Bede. "But Temperance knows I rely on her to set a good example to her sisters, don't you, dear?"

"Yes, Mum," said Temperance.

"Good girl," said Mrs. Bede. She frowned. "However, now that we all know each other, I see no reason why you should not continue to entertain Christopher. He, Mr. Roberts, and Miss Lovelace are going to be our guests for tea. We have things to discuss."

Christopher opened his mouth to protest being shuffled off with a pack of small girls, but Rosalie glared at him and he shut it again. _Consider it part of your training in investigations_. Fine, then. Vesta Bede led the way down the street, Tacroy and Rosalie followed her, and Christopher trailed after, small Patience on one side, and Temperance pushing a pram bigger than herself on the other.

The only trouble was, now that they were—not suspects, surely, how old had the reports said Temperance was, eight?—but anyway, now Christopher had no idea what to say. "Er—I'm sorry about your father," he started lamely.

"It doesn't matter," said Patience. "It wasn't Real Dad."

"Shut _up_, stupid," hissed Temperance.

"What do you mean?" said Christopher.

Patience looked at Temperance, then at the puddles around her shoes, and didn't answer.

"What did she mean?" Christopher asked Temperance.

"Nothing," said Temperance, giving the pram a hard shove. "She's just a stupid little sister."

The baby in the pram gave a surprised yelp, and then began to wail. It made it hard for Christopher to think, but he tried anyway. He looked from Patience's frightened face to Temperance's stormy one. See things from the other person's point of view, Tacroy had said.

What if it had been Papa who'd died? There'd be a funeral, and it would be boring, and solemn, and uncomfortable. Mama would be there, and she'd cry—twice as uncomfortable—and _expect_ things from him. And . . . he'd be sad, surely?

This was no good. He was no closer to understanding what Patience and Temperance had said than before. Maybe Flavian was right, and Christopher had no proper feelings.

With no further conversation, and the baby's crying preventing Christopher from hearing anything Tacroy, Rosalie, and Mrs. Bede were saying, they came to a row of long, thin houses bunched together like books on a shelf. He helped Temperance trundle the pram up to the third story of one of them, and they all came dripping into the Bedes' flat.

Tacroy and Rosalie sat politely on a sofa. Mrs. Bede bustled about getting tea, and Temperance bustled about getting food for the baby. Patience sat in a corner and talked softly to what looked like a ragged scrap of fabric, but was probably actually a doll. Christopher stuck his hands in his pockets and looked around the parlor.

It was a tiny parlor, especially when you compared it to the ones in the castle, and everything in it was old, but painfully neat. There was a glass-fronted cabinet, full of the sort of hideous bric-a-brac that glass-fronted cabinets tend to be full of. A cut-glass vase, a painted china plate, a ship in a bottle, a wooden model of a church. There was something about the church—Christopher looked at it with his witch-sight, and saw that the tiny church door really was a door to somewhere else. Not an Anywhere, a different sort of somewhere else. Somewhere Christopher knew, but couldn't _remember_ . . .

Christopher shook his head. The bell in the little church-tower was silver, so that was no use. He tried not to take personal offense every time something was made of silver, but sometimes he couldn't help it. Frustrated, he used his regular eyes again, and that was when he noticed the really odd thing. In this spotless parlor, there were crumbs in front of the church.

Dark crumbs and light crumbs. Bread and salt, for welcome. A door, and a bell. Christopher remembered Flavian's lessons, and swallowed hard. He was acutely relieved when Patience appeared at his elbow and interrupted his thoughts, although less enthusiastic about being offered a piece of cake.

"I really couldn't," said Christopher. "We had an enormous tea at the office—" But Tacroy and Rosalie were eating theirs, so Christopher supposed he'd better. "All right, then. Please," he said. He found a chair. Mrs. Bede and Tacroy and Rosalie were still not paying any attention to him, so he practiced his bored and stupid look, and listened.

"But why did your husband decide to take out an insurance policy then?" Rosalie was saying.

"He had just signed the pledge," Mrs. Bede explained. "It was the first time he was able to put money by, and not spend it on filthy drink . . . My Richard was always a good man, you understand. But weak. The flesh is a burden."

"Mm," said Tacroy.

Just then Patience came back with Christopher's tea and cake. She had a cup and saucer in one hand, and a plate and fork in another, and her doll tucked under one arm, so it wasn't surprising that everything fell to the floor with a smash somewhere between her hands and the table. Mrs. Bede looked up sharply, and Christopher was just about to put it right with magic, but Patience was quicker.

"It's all right," she called. "Nothing happened."

It was obvious which of Vesta Bede's daughters had inherited her talent for sorcery. And it was just as well that Patience had put the cake into the teacup, and the tea on the cake plate. Christopher didn't want more tea anyway.

After a few minutes, Tacroy and Rosalie got up to go. "Please let me know if there's anything else I can do," said Mrs. Bede. "We'd all like to get this unpleasant business over with as soon as possible, wouldn't we?" Another gust of persuasive magic followed them out the door.

"What a horrible woman!" said Rosalie, when they were back on the street. The rain had stopped, but they still had to step around puddles in the pavement. "Does she think Chrestomanci's department employs Elementary Magic students?"

"I'm not sure she even realized she was doing it," said Tacroy. "We've been assuming that she had a reason for deceiving the people at Pugh's. But if she does it habitually, she may be completely innocent." He frowned. "Of murder, anyway. Bewitching people isn't a _nice_ habit, of course. Did you find out anything, Christopher?"

"Yes," said Christopher. He told them about the model church. "Someone in that house is doing necromancy."


	3. Chapter 3

Tacroy and Rosalie were already there, and bickering, when Christopher got to the pentagram next morning.

"If she can't influence people who are drunk, that would explain why the clerk wasn't deceived when the others were," said Tacroy. "It would also explain her enthusiasm for temperance."

"So would having a husband who drinks all his pay when he's got small children at home," said Rosalie.

"All the more likely she killed him, then," said Tacroy.

"Not if he'd been dry for more than a year," said Rosalie.

"So maybe he fell off the wagon," said Tacroy.

"I'm not arguing that she had no motive to kill him," said Rosalie. "There's that thousand-pound insurance policy, after all. But if there's no _evidence_ she did—"

"Weren't you two taking opposite sides of this argument yesterday?" said Christopher.

"Well, Rosalie's very convincing," said Tacroy.

Rosalie tilted her chin up towards Tacroy, and dimpled. "And Mordecai loves to be contrary," she said. "But as I was saying, it would be silly to come to any conclusions before talking to Dr. Choudary. So let's go."

Instead of arriving at the pentagram at Gabriel's London office, Christopher, Tacroy, and Rosalie came out in a room filled with desks and bustle and uniformed policemen. Christopher had the feeling that things would quickly become unpleasant for anyone who arrived that way and wasn't welcome, but the three of them only got glances, nods, and one or two smiles before everyone went back to their business. Tacroy led the way through a tangle of corridors. He knocked on a stout wooden door, it opened, and there was a smell. Christopher was suddenly reminded of his second death again. The death itself had been almost instantaneous, but the waking up afterwards . . . Christopher didn't like morgues.

The man who opened the door was browner than Tacroy and shorter than Rosalie. He wore a voluminous white coat and a small pair of spectacles on the bridge of his impressive nose. "Ah. How nice to see you again, Miss Rosalie," he said. "Roberts," he added. "And?"

"This is Christopher Chant, Gabriel's ward," said Rosalie. "We're looking into the death of a man called Richard Bede."

"Bede," said the man, who was obviously the same Dr. F. Choudary that had signed the coroner's reports. "Bede. Cardiac arrest."

"Are you certain?" said Tacroy, as they followed Dr. Choudary back into the morgue.

Dr. Choudary's spectacles glinted. "I don't make guesses, Roberts," he said.

"Cardiac arrest, then," said Rosalie. "But what caused it? Richard Bede wasn't an old man, or a sick one. Might it have been magic?"

Dr. Choudary slapped a file down onto a table, making knives and saws and mirrors rattle. "I'm not a witch," he said. "But the subtlest death spell leaves traces on the body that one doesn't need witch-sight to see. Here," he pointed to something in the file. Christopher, upside-down to the file, couldn't read any of the words—nor did he think he'd be able to read Dr. Choudary's handwriting right-side-up. "The lines on the palm, the blotches on the liver—nothing."

"Poison?" suggested Rosalie.

"Nothing in his stomach but whiskey," said Dr. Choudary.

"He _did_ fall off the wagon, then," said Tacroy, with some satisfaction.

"Off?" said Dr. Choudary. "I would be astonished if the man had been sober for a day in his life."

"Is it possible," said Christopher, "that the man you examined wasn't Richard Bede?"

Dr. Choudary looked at Christopher as if the table had spoken, but since it had said something sensible he might as well listen. "That is an interesting question," he said. "What makes you ask it?"

"Richard Bede's daughter said it didn't matter that he died, since it wasn't her real father," said Christopher. "Maybe he and his wife pulled a switch with the body, and Richard Bede is still alive somewhere."

"That might have worked with a supposed corpse who had not been arrested so often for public drunkenness," said Dr. Choudary. "Unfortunately for your theory, the police assembled quite a file on Richard Bede over the years. Description, birthmarks, measurements." He thumbed through the file on the table again. "It was his body."

Tacroy stretched his arms over his head. "Well, how and who are getting us nowhere," he said. "How about when?"

Rosalie looked at him sharply. "What do you mean?"

"There's more than one way to defraud an insurance company," said Tacroy. "Suppose Richard Bede died of a perfectly natural heart attack. And then walked into Pugh's and took out a life insurance policy the next day. Necromancy, right, Christopher?"

"Even you would be able to distinguish a year-old corpse from a week-old one," said Dr. Choudary. "Bodies decay."

"If they're let alone, they do," agreed Tacroy. "But what if they're kept going by magic?"

Dr. Choudary stood for some time without speaking. "Bede's body was used very hard," he said finally. "Not with work, but with drink, and anger, and hidden sickness. If I were to tell you that all of that use was done by Bede himself, while he was alive . . ." he shrugged. "I would be guessing. I prefer to leave that sort of thing to witches and detectives."

"Thank you," said Rosalie pleasantly. "One last thing, Dr. Choudary—have you ever met Vesta Bede?"

"No," said Dr. Choudary. "I don't like grieving widows in my laboratory."

Christopher inhaled deeply as they left the morgue. So did Tacroy and Rosalie.

"That might have been more informative," said Tacroy.

"Obviously we've been speaking with the wrong doctor," said Rosalie. "Richard Bede must have been examined before Pugh's issued him a policy. You'd think whoever did the examination would have noticed his patient being dead."

They took a cab to Pugh's to consult the files. After seeing Sachs at work, Christopher could see why Oneir was unwilling to believe he had made a mistake. That he knew the exact location of Richard Bede's file was perhaps not surprising, but in the following quarter-hour various people came into the office and asked him for a dozen different pieces of paper, and nobody had time to finish their request before Sachs handed them what they wanted.

One of the people to ask Sachs for a file was Oneir. When he wasn't being spooked by Christopher, Oneir at the office was quick, and businesslike, and comfortable. Christopher thought that he must have been deceiving himself about not being cut out for insurance as much as Christopher had been deceiving himself about not being cut out to be the next Chrestomanci.

"How's the case, Chant?" he said, almost friendly, on one of his trips between offices. Christopher thought that he and Oneir could be friends again, if only they had time. But soon enough Rosalie was finished reading medical records, and had the name and address of the doctor who'd approved Richard Bede for a life insurance policy, and they were off again.

Unfortunately, Dr. Gerald Atwell had met Vesta Bede. She was charming, a veritable flower of English womanhood. He remembered Richard Bede's visit perfectly as well. He'd been in fine health, exactly as Dr. Atwell had written in the records. In fact, whenever Tacroy or Rosalie asked him a question, he answered with the same words he'd used in the records, though he didn't have the records in front of him, and the answers didn't always quite fit. When this was pointed out, he got annoyed. He insisted that he remembered Richard Bede's visit perfectly, and there had been nothing unusual about it.

"Completely bewitched," said Tacroy disgustedly as they left the clinic.

"He'd have to be, wouldn't he?" said Rosalie. "But it does leave us rather without anything to hold on to."

"Dr., er, the coroner, said that Richard Bede's stomach was full of whiskey when he died," said Christopher. "Maybe whoever sold it to him saw something. At any rate, Mrs. Bede isn't likely to have got to _him_."

"That," said Rosalie, "is an idea."

It was an idea that entailed a lot of walking around the neighborhoods where Richard Bede had lived and worked, and ducking into pubs. Gabriel would probably not have sent Christopher on this particular mission if he'd known that in advance. On the other hand, perhaps he would have. Christopher was certainly learning that pubs were dull places full of unhelpful people.

It was the fifteenth or so pub, a place called the Guttering Candle two blocks from the Bedes' flat, where the landlord acknowledged that he knew Richard Bede.

"We're looking into his death," said Tacroy.

The landlord's head came up, and he set the glass he was polishing down on the bar with a surprised thump. "Richard Bede isn't dead," he said.

"According to the coroner, he is," said Rosalie. "Two weeks ago, of a heart attack."

The landlord let out a little puff of breath, almost a laugh. "Two weeks," he said. Then he shook his head solemnly. "Poor man. His life was cut short by trouble, no mistake."

"So," said Tacroy, "when _didn't_ Richard Bede die?"

The landlord looked at Tacroy for a minute, clearly deciding whether to say anything. Then he shrugged. "It was last May," he said. "I remember, because those balloonists had caused such a ruckus, and Bede and Merriman were arguing about that. They were always arguing about something, mind, but that evening it happened to be the balloonists. Merriman was pounding on the table, and Bede was shouting and he heaved himself to his feet. Then he was sick and fell over."

The landlord snorted. "Well, that wasn't any unusual either," he said. "But when I went to help him up, he was dead. Heart stopped, not breathing, dead."

"Are you certain?" said Rosalie.

"I was in the wars, in Greece," said the landlord. "I know dead."

"And then?" said Tacroy.

"And then Vesta Bede came through the door," said the landlord. "Waddled, more like, eight months pregnant if she was a day, begging your pardon, ma'am. Someone must have gone to fetch her. She crouches down beside Bede and starts to talk to him in that voice she's got, like she's forgiving you for nailing her to a cross. I was wondering how to tell her that he was past hearing, when he stands up on his own two feet."

The landlord shook his head. "I've never known Vesta Bede to be able to fetch her husband out of a pub without a screaming row, if he was still sober enough to walk. But that evening he followed her without a word, meek as a baby. Later I hear he's taken the pledge, and I think, he'll never stick to it, Bede. But I never saw him again."

"If you knew he was dead," said Rosalie, "why didn't you say anything to anybody?"

"Strange things happen, don't they?" said the landlord. "There was that in the papers a couple of months back, about a boy who got up and walked out of a morgue after having his head smashed in."

"What nonsense," said Christopher. "The papers will print anything."

"That's as may be," the landlord said tolerantly.

Tacroy grinned. "Today's youth," he said. "Think they know everything, don't they? Thank you, you've been very helpful. Come along, Christopher."

"I believe that is enough to lay charges," said Rosalie. They took a cab to Bow Street, and then a police van, with two uniformed officers, back to the Bedes' flat.

Vesta Bede answered their knock. "What can I do for you, Miss Lovelace?" she said. Her eyes narrowed as they took in the crowd outside her door. "Mr. Roberts . . . gentlemen," she added.

"We've talked to Dr. Gerald Atwell, and Hugo Donovan down at the Guttering Candle," said Rosalie. "Do you have a neighbor, or a friend, that I can take your daughters to, Mrs. Bede? There's no need for them to hear this."

"If you think they ought not to hear it, maybe you ought not to say it," said Vesta Bede, folding her arms. Behind her, Christopher could see Temperance's sharp features come alert, and hear Patience's stream of babble to her doll dry up. Even the baby took its foot out of its mouth and looked around itself in perplexity.

Rosalie pressed her lips together unhappily, and nodded. "Vesta Bede," she said, "you are under arrest on suspicion of the following counts of misuse of magic—"

"What does that mean?" said Patience, high and frightened.

Temperance wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "It _means_ they're going to take Mum away," she said. Her eyes, which were the color of weak tea, glared directly into Christopher's. "Doesn't it."

_It isn't _my _fault!_ Christopher wanted to protest. But he had been Chrestomanci, and would be again. _Consider it part of your training . . . _Someday, everything like this would be his fault. He had better have an answer for her.

"Yes, it does," said Tacroy. "I'm sorry."

"Using witchcraft to commit fraud," Rosalie went on implacably, "and disturbing the peace of the dead."

"Disturbing his _peace_!" said Vesta Bede scornfully. "Isn't it a man's duty to provide for his family? What right did he have to die, and leave us with nothing? Weak, Richard was always weak. It's a terrible thing when a woman has to be strong, because her man is weak."

The persuasive magic was coming off her like a stinging wind. Christopher didn't need his witch-sight to feel it. One of the policemen took a step backwards.

"Come along, Mrs. Bede," said Rosalie.

She dropped to her knees beside her daughters instead. "Temperance!" she cried, throwing her arms around the oldest girl. Then she sat back, adjusted Temperance's hair ribbon, and tucked a flyaway strand behind her ear. "Take the girls to Mrs. Gardiner, dear. She'll take you in. Remember, it's your job to take care of Patience and Fortitude now." She hugged Patience, who clung back, eyes wide and confused. "Be a good girl, Patience. Here's a kiss for you, and a kiss for Baby Rachel," she added, pressing her lips against the ragged fabric of Patience's doll. She scooped up the baby, and laid her cheek briefly against its fuzzy head. "Mummy loves you very much, Fortitude," she said, and handed the baby to Temperance. Then she stood. "All right," she said. "I'll go quietly."

Rosalie helped the policemen put the magical bindings on Mrs. Bede as they loaded her into the van. Flavian had somehow neglected to teach Christopher how to do those yet, and they still made Tacroy twitchy, so they waited on the pavement. Rosalie soon joined them, and the three of them watched the van drive off in glum silence.

"I suppose it's back to lessons for me tomorrow," said Christopher, with decidedly mixed feelings. Investigations were much more interesting than lessons. But lessons never ended with taking anyone's mother away.

Tacroy and Rosalie shared a look. "Or you could come back to London for one more day, if you'd rather," said Tacroy. "Rosalie and I have a few last things to take care of."

Writing up reports, no doubt. One of the least pleasant things Christopher had learned from the affair with the Wraith and the Dright was that _everything_ you did for Chrestomanci's department, you had to write a report about. Christopher wasn't sure why they couldn't write their reports at the castle, but he liked going to London with Tacroy and Rosalie. And maybe they would have some reason to stop off at Pugh's. "Miss Rosalie," he said, reminded, "can I invite Oneir to visit at the castle?"

"I don't see why not," said Rosalie. "I'll have to ask Gabriel, of course—"

"No, you won't," said Christopher wheedlingly. "You just write it down in your little book, and when Gabriel says, 'What's on the schedule today, Rosalie?' you tell him, 'There's a meeting with the Warlock's Guild at 9:00, and then you really ought to look at those reports from the Committee on Magical Education, Christopher's friend Oneir is arriving at 1:00, tea with the Minister at 4:00 . . . .' He'll never notice. Easy."

"_But_ I'm sure he'll say yes," Rosalie finished. "Honestly, Christopher, why do you act as if the only way you can have the things you want is by getting around Gabriel somehow? It isn't true."

"I don't-!" said Christopher, looking appealingly at Tacroy.

"She's right, Christopher," said Tacroy. "You have to watch out for your habits. They'll trip you up."

Christopher thought of Vesta Bede and her gusts of persuasive magic, and didn't answer.


	4. Chapter 4

Christopher headed straight to Pugh's, alone, when they arrived at the London office the next morning. Tacroy and Rosalie's business took them in another direction entirely.

The tall lady in the neat black dress in the lobby of Pugh's seemed at a loss as to what to do with Christopher when he didn't have Tacroy and Rosalie with him. She told him that Oneir wasn't in. Whether he really wasn't in, or whether the lady had simply decided that Christopher could have no legitimate business with him, it was clear that there was no use in arguing.

"If I leave a note for him," said Christopher, "will you see that he gets it?"

The lady allowed as she would.

Christopher conjured a pen and paper—one of the heavy squares of card from Gabriel's desk. Using Gabriel's stationery had been one of the pleasures of being Chrestomanci, and if Gabriel didn't want Christopher to go on using it now that he was no longer Chrestomanci, he ought to keep it in a silver box or something. Christopher dashed off a note to Oneir and gave it to the lady. She held out a careless hand for it, but once she felt its weight and soft buttery texture she handled it almost reverently, and assured Christopher that she would give it to Oneir as soon as possible. Christopher believed her. She might not respect Christopher, but she respected Gabriel's stationery.

Then Christopher was left rather at loose ends. It was too late to join Tacroy and Rosalie on their errand; he had no idea where they had gone. The idea of sitting quietly in the office, or returning to the castle, didn't appeal. Here he was in London, with no responsibilities and no one looking over his shoulder; he was sure he could find _something_ to do.

Instead, he shortly found that his aimless wandering had taken him to the house where the Bedes lived. Temperance sat in the tiny strip of garden in front of the house, dwarfed by the baby's pram. Christopher stopped, and looked again. Something was definitely wrong.

"Temperance," he said, "where's Patience?"

Temperance gave a little shake of her head, then lifted her chin and scowled, no more pleased with Christopher than she had been at their last meeting. "Right here, stupid," said Temperance. "On the step, talking to her stupid doll."

Patience was _not_ on the step. Christopher had a sudden vivid memory of Vesta Bede saying goodbye to her daughters, straightening Temperance's hair ribbon, kissing Patience's doll. Temperance was wearing the same ribbon in her hair today.

Temperance startled, and then sat stiffly still, when Christopher reached over and began to work with both hands at a spot in the air directly above her left ear. It was a tight and fiddly spell-knot, but he had some experience with those. The threads dissolved as the knot came apart, and Temperance looked up at him with round and panicked eyes. "Where's _Patience_?" she said.

"That's what I asked you," Christopher said.

"You," Temperance snarled, "take me to Patience _right now_."

"Right," said Christopher. "I don't suppose she knows how to write her name yet."

Temperance didn't call Christopher stupid aloud again, but the look on her face did it eloquently enough.

"Bring me something of hers, then," said Christopher. "Something special to her, or that she usually has with her, if you can manage it." The doll would have been perfect, but Christopher was fairly certain that wherever Patience was now, her doll was too.

Temperance ran into the house, and Christopher was left in the garden with the baby. "Mm muh ma," said the baby, sticking its head out of the pram.

"Not you too," said Christopher. "None of this is my fault."

Temperance came back, clutching a length of white fabric. "This is all I could find," she said.

On top of everything else, Christopher was now going to have to walk the streets of London holding a small girl's nightdress. But it was a good thought. Patience had worn it every night for more than a year, and it felt strongly of her. There was a gentle tug to the east. Christopher followed it, and Temperance pushed the pram and hurried to keep up.

"I think," said Christopher, "that you had really better tell me now about your real dad, and your other dad."

Temperance gave Christopher a hard sidelong look. "Dads," she said finally. "They weren't really different people. _I_ know that. I _think_ Patience knows it." She scowled furiously. "Real Dad is the one who goes with you for a walk in the park after chapel on Sunday, and makes you feel sorry when you pull your sister's hair. Drunk Dad is the one who smells bad, and has shouting rows with Mum. Strange Dad is the one who doesn't blink properly, and has to lie down a lot, and copies Mum or Patience. I always thought Drunk Dad was the worst, but Patience was more scared of Strange Dad. Since Forty was born, we've had Strange Dad _all the time_."

Christopher's fist tightened around the flimsy nightdress. This was not the first time Vesta Bede had enlisted Patience's help in her magical workings, then. What sort of person looked at a tiny girl and thought, _how can I use her?_ Christopher knew the answer to that one intimately.

"What are you doing?" said Temperance. "We've been around this block twice."

And so they had. Either Patience was being hidden, or there was a misdirection set up, or . . . in any case, the nightdress had got them this close and was not going to get them any closer. He could set up a more precise location spell. But that would take time, and it was magician's work and Christopher was no good at it. Or he could think.

If _he_ were Vesta Bede, what would _he_ do once he fetched Patience to himself? Break out of jail, first of all. But the jail was at Bow Street Station, across town, and Patience was somewhere nearby. And just breaking out of jail was no good if you had no money, and nowhere to go. Vesta Bede could not slip around a corner into an Anywhere. She must have had a plan . . . or must she?

Christopher remembered Vesta Bede standing in her parlor, surrounded by stinging magic, defying Rosalie and the rest of them. It had not been money that had made her do what she had done, not just money. It was anger. Christopher understood anger.

Slavery, Mama had called it when Christopher first came to the castle to live, and Christopher had agreed. He had wanted to call down a whirlwind, summon up fire, the biggest, most destructive magic he could manage. But Vesta Bede was not an enchanter. She was a necromancer. Christopher looked up over the roofs of the houses, and saw a church bell tower, the model of the one in Vesta Bede's cabinet. "There," he said, and broke into a run. Temperance pelted after him, pram wheels clattering.

The street was deserted when they got to the church, but the big iron gate of the churchyard stood ajar. Many of these older graveyards had sections where people had been buried in the plague year; no headstones, no coffins, all jumbled together. Vesta Bede sat facing Patience across a heap of turned-over earth and ancient bones, their hands moving together as if they were playing a clapping game. There was no expression on Patience's face, and she didn't blink. There was a smell of fresh bread. Christopher's stomach turned over. Temperance screamed.

The church door shimmered like the one at the Bedes' flat; Christopher knew where it led now. He had been in and out of that door six times already, and if he didn't _look_, he could probably keep his breakfast down. Vesta Bede, intent on the spell she was guiding Patience through, didn't glance up. But Christopher couldn't work with Temperance screaming, and the baby wailing counterpoint. "Temperance," he said, surprised at how even his own voice was, "what's your job?"

Temperance swallowed her scream, and tried to speak. It came out a sob. She tried again. "Taking—taking care of Patience and Fortitude," she said.

"Right," said Christopher. "So when I say run, you grab Patience and you _run_."

There were tears and snot running down Temperance's face, but she lifted her chin, and nodded.

Vesta Bede stood, and Patience did too. She turned around, and Patience did too. Her eye fell on Temperance, and a line of magic stretched out, daughter to mother to daughter. Christopher grabbed it, and pulled. "_Run_," he said.

Quick as a falcon, Temperance ran across the churchyard, her wispy hair flying out behind her, weaving through headstones without slowing. Christopher held on to the line of magic that Vesta Bede kept trying to throw at Temperance with one hand, and tried to break the one connecting her to Patience with the other. There was no question that Christopher's magic was stronger than Patience's, but the line twisted around itself again and again; he broke one strand, and another began to knit itself together. Temperance grabbed Patience's hand. Patience's face turned unblinkingly towards her mother's like a flower towards the sun, and her free hand moved blindly in the gestures of the spell. Temperance ran back towards Christopher, dragging Patience along anyhow. Christopher still couldn't break the line of Patience's magic, but slowly he began to stretch it. Temperance came up beside him. Her other hand closed around the handle of the baby's pram. "Run _far_," said Christopher.

Temperance clattered out of the churchyard, dragging one sister and pushing the other. Patience's magic stretched and stretched. Christopher let go of the free end of magic he was holding, and used both hands to tear apart the other. Patience was free. But the greater part of her magic snapped back to Vesta Bede.

The free end of magic whipped forward and caught Christopher around the neck. He tugged at it impatiently as Vesta Bede brought her hands sharply down, and spoke something somewhere between a word and a shriek. The bones at her feet stirred slightly. The energy in the church doorway, seen out of the edge of Christopher's eye, bulged, obscenely pregnant. Something big was coming through, or would if Vesta Bede finished calling it. The great bell in the tower swung back.

The bell was heavy, heavy, and it wanted to swing. But it was iron, not silver, and Christopher could hold it in place as long as he needed to. What he found he could not do was hold the bell in place and deal with the stray line of magic that was once again winding itself around his throat. Now would be an excellent time to call Gabriel. But Christopher couldn't speak.

And then a figure was standing between Christopher and Vesta Bede, nearly close enough to touch. It wasn't Gabriel; it was Oneir. He was holding a square of heavy, butter-colored card. _I have really got to start putting my enchanter's seal on things I sign with my own name_, thought Christopher dazedly.

Vesta Bede's attention was caught by the newcomer for a moment. Christopher let the bell down gently and silently, tore the choking line of magic off his neck, and balled it up between his hands. "Oneir!" he called hoarsely. "Catch!"

Oneir's eyes went from Christopher to Vesta Bede in confusion. But he snatched the ball of magic out of the air very handily.

Vesta Bede snarled, lifted then brought down her hands, and pulled the bell back for another swing. Christopher was ready this time. He pulled energy desperately away from the church door, the pile of bones, the sticky strands of magic connecting them. When he had too much to hold, he put it into the ball in Oneir's hand, and pulled some more. The bell sounded, loud and hollow. "Push it back at her!" Christopher shouted over it.

This wasn't Oneir's style of magic, but he knew enough to add his strength to Christopher's. Whatever it was that Vesta Bede had been summoning grounded itself in her and returned to the earth. She crumpled and fell.

"She isn't dead, is she?" said Christopher, hurrying towards her.

"No," said Oneir, who was already kneeling by her head. "Just knocked out, I think."

"Good," said Christopher. Not that Vesta Bede particularly deserved to live, but Christopher had never killed anybody and didn't want to start now. Oneir, of course, had; and Christopher didn't want to be the one to make him do it again, either.

But Oneir was right. Vesta Bede's chest was rising and falling. Christopher put a hand on it, and then, intangibly, _into_ it.

"What are you doing?" said Oneir.

Christopher's hand came out covered in sticky threads, and he began to wind them. "Taking away her magic," he said. Actually, Vesta Bede's magic had been taken away yesterday. This was Patience's. Christopher would have to see that she got it back. And her nightdress. "Gabriel's never taught me to do it—I'm sure he thinks I'd misuse it—but I think I see how it's done." The magic, all wound up, made a surprisingly compact ball. Christopher tucked it into his pocket. "How did you know to come here?" he asked.

"I had a presentiment when Miss Larch gave me your card," said Oneir. "They run in my family, you know. It's how we got into insurance in the first place . . . Chant?"

Unfortunately, Christopher's body seemed to have decided that the danger was over. He managed to say, "Excuse me," and stagger over to a rosebush before his stomach turned itself inside out.

"Are you all right, Chant?" said Oneir when he was finished.

Christopher sat heavily on the ground and rested his head against the blessedly cool tombstone of Elijah Gotobed, 1832-1905. "I'm fine," he said. "It's just . . . necromancy. It always gets to me, I don't know why."

Oneir crossed his arms on top of the tombstone, and rested his chin on them. "You know, _most_ people don't think of death as some sort of jolly picnic," he said. There was an edge of bitterness in his voice. "Or maybe you don't know."

Christopher sighed. He was exhausted, his mouth tasted vile, his hands were shaking, and he didn't want to _argue_. "You saved my life, Oneir," he said. "Can we call it even? Please?"

"Tell me," said Oneir, "what would you have done if I hadn't come by?"

"Died," said Christopher. "And hoped that Mordecai and Rosalie, or Gabriel, had sorted things out by the time I came alive again."

Oneir shook his head incredulously. "How many lives have you got left really?" he said.

"Three," admitted Christopher.

"All right, Chant. We're even." Oneir laughed. "But I am _never_ going to insure you."

There was a clatter of wheels by the gate of the churchyard, and Rosalie burst though, pushing the pram. Tacroy ran alongside her, with Patience in his arms—Patience pale and drained, but clearly Real Patience once more. Temperance hurried along behind them.

Rosalie was red and panting, and Tacroy's face had gone gray, and Christopher could see that they were going to fuss. But Christopher had just defeated an evil sorceress, and he didn't want to be fussed over. He pulled himself to his feet, leaning on the tombstone. "Good of you two to show up," he said.

Rosalie folded her arms across her chest. "You haven't gone and lost another life, have you?" she said.

"No thanks to you," said Christopher, "but no."

"Good," said Rosalie. "Gabriel would never let me hear the end of it." Then she hugged him fiercely. Christopher gave up making sarcastic comments, and hugged her back.

"Temperance told us how you found Patience," said Tacroy. "That was well done."

"I did what you said. I looked at things from Vesta Bede's point of view." Christopher clenched his hands, which had started shaking again. "It wasn't very nice."

"No," agreed Tacroy.

"What's going to happen to Temperance, Patience, and Fortitude now?" said Christopher.

"_I'll_ take care of Patience and Forty, stupid," said Temperance. "It's my job."

"And after what you did today nobody could deny that you're very good at it," said Rosalie. "But it's a big job, and you shouldn't have to do it by yourself all the time. You have other important jobs, like going to school, learning your lessons, making friends."

Temperance looked up at her skeptically.

"We spoke to a judge this morning," Tacroy said. "Until your mother gets out of prison—and if you'd like to—you can live with us."

Patience raised her cheek from his shoulder. "All of us?" she said.

"Yes," said Tacroy.

"That's all right, then," said Patience, and let her head drop.

"How long until Mum gets out of prison?" said Temperance.

"I don't know," said Rosalie. "That will be up to another judge, and a jury. But I think it will be several years."

"Good," said Temperance.

"They're going to live in the castle?" said Christopher.

"That would be a bit much for poor Gabriel," said Rosalie. "No, with Mordecai and me."

"But _you_ live in the castle," said Christopher.

"Not anymore," said Tacroy. "We always meant to move into a house in the village once we were married. It isn't quite ready, but we can live with builders underfoot for a few weeks."

"Judges tend to be much happier about fostering children with couples who are married," said Rosalie. "Luckily we already had the license."

Now that Christopher was looking, he could see the gleam of gold under Rosalie's black lace mitten. "Congratulations," he said weakly. Then he grinned. "Miss Rosalie, your aunts are going to be furious!"

"Aren't they just?" said Rosalie. "I _am_ sorry to disappoint Millie, though. I know she was looking forward to the wedding."

"But . . . if you're going to live in the village," said Christopher, "are you going play on their team, when there's a cricket match against the castle?"

Tacroy's eyes crinkled. "You know, I hadn't considered it," he said.

"I suppose we'll be bound to," said Rosalie, dimpling.

"But I _want_ to live in a castle," Patience complained sleepily.

"You'll visit it a lot," Tacroy promised her. "We'll be there nearly every day." He was speaking to Patience, but he was looking at Christopher.

"Speaking of which," said Rosalie, turning to Oneir. He looked surprised that someone had remembered he was there. "I hope you won't let today's events discourage you. Things are not usually quite so exciting."

"What?" said Oneir.

"I forgot to ask," said Christopher. "Will you come visit at the castle, Oneir? Gabriel says you can."

"Well, I've got this job," said Oneir. "But I'm going to have a real holiday for the week before school, and then . . . sure."


	5. Chapter 5

The Goddess came home the next week. She forgave Tacroy and Rosalie very readily for getting married without her once she found out why they had done it—she thought all three Bedes were precious and adorable, even after Temperance called her a fat, stupid heathen.

(Temperance's preciousness and adorability didn't stop the Goddess from turning her hair to glass and refusing to turn it back until she apologized. The Goddess might not _technically_ be a goddess anymore, but she maintained a divine sense of priorities: vengeance first, forgiveness afterwards.)

Lessons with Flavian were back to Intermediate Enchanter's Magic, since the Goddess hadn't had a chance to learn any at her school. Christopher could do it all standing on his head, but it was better than necromancy—and, if he were honest, he didn't mind having a chance to show off a bit, and Flavian didn't mind giving it to him. Flavian was much easier to get on with when the Goddess was home. Even Gabriel was easier to get on with when the Goddess was home.

The only trouble was that the Goddess refused to learn how to play cricket. It didn't matter how often Christopher told her that it was the best game in the Related Worlds, and he was sure she'd be brilliant at it, she always picked things up so quickly, only it was too bad she didn't have four arms anymore, and anyway now that the castle had lost its two best players to the village—its best players aside from Christopher, of course—she had a positive _duty_ to play. She just told him that if she heard the word "cricket" one more time, she'd electroplate him. Christopher was not sure what electroplating was, but he gathered it was something to do with silver and something to do with alchemy, which the Goddess had learned at school and was now quite keen on. She spent an entire Sunday dinner talking to Dr. Simonson about it. Girls really were a Complete Mystery.

Oneir, when he came to visit, was also—on reflection, understandably—reluctant to play cricket with Christopher. But he was nowhere near as stubborn as the Goddess, and he didn't know about electroplating.

And so, on the Saturday of Oneir's visit, there was a match between the castle and the village. Tacroy and Flavian had arranged it, which was decent of Flavian, when you considered how much trouble Christopher had given him at the beginning of the summer, and how useless he was at cricket.

Everyone came down from the castle for the match. The team was the usual mix of castle sorcerers and assorted staff, the wizard from Oxford whose name Christopher could never remember, Dr. Simonson, Flavian, and Christopher and Oneir. Jason, who was back from visiting his family, came along to work the scoreboard—a prospect which did not please him as much as it usually did, since he would have to share his duties with Temperance Bede. Temperance had taken a thorough dislike to Jason. She seemed to need someone near her own age to thoroughly dislike to in order to feel at home.

Gabriel had dressed in his ancient striped blazer, and would be translocating down to the village green in time to meet the rest of the castle party. Christopher privately agreed that translocation was the only way to travel, but he drew the line at publically agreeing with Gabriel about anything. Even the Goddess, despite her earlier dire threats, came along, a fat book under one arm and two more in a satchel over her shoulder. As soon as they reached the green, she sat down in the grass and began reading. She had _come_ to the cricket match, but she clearly didn't intend to watch it.

The castle batted first, and Christopher soon found himself facing Tacroy. This had its advantages and disadvantages. Tacroy was not likely to underestimate him as the blacksmith had. But then, Christopher knew all of Tacroy's tricks as well. In the end, Christopher was out for ten runs, which he decided was respectable. He walked over to the scoreboard to talk to Jason, because he knew Jason would tell him he'd been brilliant.

"You were _brilliant_," said Jason.

"Thanks," said Christopher, pushing his sweaty hair out of his face. "Mordecai is a demon, though."

"I know," said Jason. "_Why _does he have to play for the village now?"

"We live in the village, stupid," said Temperance. "Who'd want to play for the castle, anyhow? Half of the team are children." Mr. McLintock, the gardener, had come in to replace Christopher, and Temperance cast a scornful eye on his stance. "And those are the ones that can bat."

Christopher would have liked to defend the castle's honor. But Temperance had, in a left-handed way, said he was a better batsman than McLintock, and fair enough. "Must you call everyone stupid?" he said instead.

Temperance looked at him levelly. "It saves having to remember people's names," she said.

And so it must. Christopher wondered why he had never thought of that strategy. But then, he had never been quite as horrible a child as Temperance Bede.

A cool breeze blew up. It felt wonderful, and smelled of autumn. The umpire called, "Over!" and the village team milled around changing ends. The blacksmith was bowling now, and Oneir stood facing him, holding his bat lightly. This was the Oneir of the office, and of school before that: solid, comfortable, competent.

Christopher spotted Rosalie on the boundary, and the two younger Bedes with their nurse beyond that. The nurse was a young woman from the village with a broad freckled face who seemed to have a quiet, hidden sort of magic. The baby sat at her skirt pulling up grass. The castle cats had come down too—probably translocated like Gabriel—and Proudfoot was sitting on Patience's lap, blissfully being stroked. Throgmorten kept warily beyond arms' reach, probably deciding whether to rescue his kitten with biting and claws.

The Goddess sat on the other side of the field, with the castle spectators. At some point she had taken off her shoes and stockings, and was wriggling her bare toes in the grass, still absorbed in her book. There was not much chance of Christopher's getting _her_ to say he'd been brilliant, but he wandered over and sat hopefully next to her anyway.

She looked up and gave him a polite, confused smile, as if she were not quite sure who he was and why he had dragged her out of her world, and then bent her head to her book again. Christopher looked over her shoulder. It was one of the ones Oneir had brought her. It had vampires in and Oneir had assured her that his sister had soaked through a basket of handkerchiefs, reading it.

When Oneir had helped Christopher find the Millie books, Christopher had implied that they were for his cousin Caroline. But Christopher may have mentioned the Goddess once or twice in his letters to Oneir over the past month. And Oneir could be entirely too canny about some things. Christopher resolved to pick out presents for the Goddess himself, in future.

Oneir came to sit next to them when he was out. Christopher was pleased to note that Oneir got no more response from the Goddess than he had. She sat and occasionally sniffled as Christopher and Oneir watched the match and cheerfully abused the other players. Then Flavian was in, and almost immediately out, and Christopher and Oneir got up to take the field with the rest of the castle team.

The castle was still without a decent bowler since the loss of Tacroy. Dr. Simonson was not bad, and the Oxford wizard was . . . well, they tried not to put him up against Rosalie. Things went badly. The village was only seven runs behind by the time they lost five wickets.

Then McLintock managed to stump Rosalie out, and Tacroy came in. Christopher heard the edge of something amused and fond as they passed each other. The blacksmith was out for two runs, and the gangly young man who came in after him was out for four.

The castle could win, if Tacroy could be dismissed without scoring. But the Oxford wizard was beginning to stagger. His delivery was slow and wobbly. Tacroy mistimed his cut, and the ball flew up towards the covers. It hung against the summer sky for a moment, impossibly red and impossibly blue, before Oneir snatched it out of the air.


End file.
